The death of a 1-month-old Staten Island boy from severe malnutrition during the summer has been ruled a homicide, the police said, the second such case to come to light in a month.
The baby, identified as Joseph Heben Jr., was unconscious when he arrived at a hospital in Staten Island on a Saturday morning in July, according to the police. The police did not say who had brought the infant to the hospital; staff members called the authorities around 7 a.m.
On Tuesday night, the police said that Joseph’s death had been deemed a homicide by the New York City medical examiner’s office.
No arrests had been made by Wednesday morning and the police said that the investigation was continuing.
The medical examiner’s office did not immediately respond to questions. New York’s Administration for Children’s Services did not immediately respond to a question about whether Joseph’s family had a history with the agency.
A woman listed as a resident of the address given as Joseph’s home did not answer a phone call or text on Wednesday.
The news of Joseph’s death came less than a month after a 4-year-old boy, Jahmeik Modlin, was found severely malnourished in a Harlem apartment and died. Jahmeik’s family had been on the radar of the city’s child welfare agency even before he was born. After his death, his parents were charged with second-degree manslaughter and his three siblings were hospitalized. On Wednesday, his mother and father were indicted on murder charges.
The number of children in New York City who die from abuse or are killed by family members fluctuates from year to year. In 2022, there were 17 domestic homicides of children under the age of 10, according to police data. That number appeared to be eight last year, and five so far this year.
Joseph lived his short life in a second-story apartment on the main drag of the Tottenville neighborhood, on the southern tip of Staten Island’s South Shore. On the first floor is the Cracker Barrel Deli, framed by a green-and-white awning. The second floor is filled with several apartments along a dark hallway.
There was no response to a knock on the door of Joseph’s family’s unit on Wednesday. But when told of the 1-month-old child’s death, neighbors reacted with a mixture of shock, disgust and grief.
“This neighborhood is safe,” said Tham Kshetry, 38, a part-time worker at the deli who added that he has two children. “When I heard what happened upstairs, I felt bad.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the neighborhood is good,” he said, “but I guess 1 percent is bad.”
Enrique Vargas, 37, who runs the Citi Fades Barbershop down the block on Main Street, said he was greatly disturbed by the death.
“This is shocking,” he said. “I’m a father of three. This hits hard.”
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